


What Makes the Desert Beautiful

by Argenteus_Draco



Series: Soldiers and Spies and Avengers [1]
Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: But Probably an AU, Canon Compliant (Mostly), Character Study, Gen, Infinity War Reaction Writing, Past Relationships, Platonic Love is Important, Post-Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Steve Still Has Trust Issues, character sketch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-03
Updated: 2017-12-03
Packaged: 2019-02-09 20:52:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12896580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Argenteus_Draco/pseuds/Argenteus_Draco
Summary: It has been thirteen years since Natasha Romanoff last saw a cryo-sleep chamber.(It has been less than six hours since she last dreamed of one, and of the man inside.)





	What Makes the Desert Beautiful

It has been thirteen years since Natasha Romanoff last saw a cryo-sleep chamber.

(It has been less than six hours since she last dreamed of one, and of the man inside.)

The frost on the glass recedes slowly. The Wakandans are kinder in waking him than HYDRA’s scientists had ever been, though it’s harder on Natasha to have the process so drawn out. The pneumatics hiss as the chamber opens. The fingers of his flesh hand twitch, the monitors attached to them beep steadily as his body temperature rises. Blue eyes blink heavily once, twice, before opening properly, settling on Natasha. She counts the heartbeats while they watch each other. One. Two. Three. Fo-

“Bucky?”

His gaze shifts to the man beside her, focuses. 

Natasha turns away. This is not her moment.

She waited thirteen years. Steve has waited longer.

+-+-+-+

The second floor of the lab is mostly deserted. Two technicians are carrying a long box toward the elevator as Natasha exits it. She knows what’s inside. Steve told her about Siberia. She thinks she ought to be there to see it attached, but the thought makes her gag. She knows what’s true, but she doesn’t like to think of him as being _machined_. She takes the first chair she sees and falls into it.

Someone puts a paper cup full of steaming tea on the desk in front of her. She picks it up without thinking and brings it to her lips, only to have the same someone put a hand over the small opening in the lid before she can complete the motion.

“Careful, Nat. Hot.”

She puts the cup back on the desk. 

It kills her that after two and a half years, after everything that’s happened to each of them, Bruce still knows her so well. She manages half a smile as she finally looks up.

“What would I do without you?”

“You seem to have managed well enough.” He rolls another chair up beside hers and picks up his own tea, blowing on the top before taking a sip. “Everything going alright down there?”

Natasha shrugs.

“We’re going to need him.”

“I’m done recruiting.”

“Shame,” Bruce tells her, teasing. “You’re so good at it.”

Natasha resists the urge to make a rude and rather childish hand gesture in response. Instead, she says simply, “I know.”

They lapse into silence. Natasha wraps her hands around the paper cup, letting it warm her suddenly cold palms. She thinks, but does not add, _I know. I’m exactly what they made me_. No matter how far she thinks she’s come from her days in the Red Room, she never really changes. Her life always comes back to this inevitable truth.

Bruce puts his tea down and leans forward, elbows on his knees, to peer at her curiously. As if reading her mind, he asks her suddenly, “Do you ever think about it, Nat? What we’d all be like if we weren’t—”

“What we are?” she asks dryly.

“I’d read more,” he says, missing or perhaps ignoring her tone. “I haven’t sat down to just read for fun in… well, too long. You read anything good lately?” She raises an eyebrow incredulously. “No?” he prompts. “Chekhov? Tolstoy?”

“Not really my thing.”

“What is your thing?” When she doesn’t answer, he reaches out and tugs playfully at her sleeve; only her conditioning keeps her from pulling away. “Come on. Just between you and me, underneath all this pretense, what does Natasha Romanoff like to read?”

“Bruce—”

“We could go round in circles for days talking about what we can’t have,” he points out, leaning back in his chair again. “We both know what we’d say. Look around, Nat. Maybe you haven’t noticed, but the world is pretty scary right now. Can’t we at least have this back?”

This. The casual touches with no double meaning. The comfort of a friendly voice, the words themselves unimportant. The easy honesty, the trust. She’s never had this with anyone else, not even with Clint, who she also loves— 

All at once, with that admittance, it feels like a bubble has burst inside her, a weight lifted out of the pit of her stomach. Yes, she realizes, she’s missed this. She’s missed this sort of love far more than the things they might have had.

Hesitantly, Natasha smiles. “I try to read _Le Petit Prince_ every year.”

Bruce looks genuinely surprised. “The Little Prince?”

“Have you read it?”

“Can’t say that I have,” he says, shaking his head. “Not what I would have pegged you for, though, from what little I know of it.”

“Oh?” she asks, prompting. Her tea, she thinks, is a safe temperature now, and she breathes in the familiar scent of Bruce’s favorite green and mint blend before sipping.

“Based on your taste in television,” Bruce says in answer, “I would have guessed those romance novels you find in airport gift shops and grocery store check outs.”

Now it’s her turn to swat at him.  He retreats, chuckling, and she says, “ _Ce qui embellit le désert c’est qu'il cache un puits quelque part_.”

Bruce puts his hands up in a gesture of defeat. Laughing despite herself, she tells him, “I’ll get you a copy.”

“In English, please,” he says, and she laughs again. 

“Fine,” she says. “If you insist.” Then she sits up straighter in her chair, and asks indignantly, “Romance novels?”

“You watch a lot of crap TV, I just figured—”

Bruce stops and they both turn sharply toward the sound of the elevator returning to their floor. The doors slide open. Steve looks at them, and for a moment some of the worry melts off his face, his expression softens — just a moment, though, and then his gaze shifts to Natasha, and in a tight, clipped voice, he says, “He’s asking for you.”

Natasha nearly drops her tea. 

Bruce reaches out and pats her arm as she gets up. This time she thinks about how well he knows her, her chest tightens up for an entirely different reason. It's nice, actually.

“ _Bozhe moi_ ,” she says, giving him one last smile over her shoulder before she follows Steve out of the room.

**Author's Note:**

> I think one of the greatest things that has ever happened to me in fandom is three people who Do Not Ship It started talking about BruceTasha and, instead of starting a ship war, came together to celebrate platonic love.
> 
> This is just a sketch for the time being. It may be expanded, if the spirit moves me as I watch the Infinity War trailer more and more.
> 
>  
> 
> *Ce qui embellit le désert c’est qu'il cache un puits quelque part. — What makes the desert beautiful is that somewhere it hides a well.


End file.
